With a name like Moondog you would be hard pressed to come up with an album title as good as your moniker. I’m guessing that is the reason there are so many different recordings called “Moondog.” I had one on vinyl back in the late sixties and then in February of 1970 the Sunday Democrat & Chronicle featured Moondog on the cover of their Upstate Magazine. I kept the magazine inside the gatefold lp for a long time, then scanned the article for the Refrigerator. While staying with a friend who was living in Hell’s Kitchen, we walked over to Sixth Avenue where Moondog was holding court. I was a fan and so was his onetime roommate, Philip Glass.
Later I found two of his cds in the downtown library, one called “Moondog” and the other “More Moondog/The Story of Moondog,” both recorded in the mid fifties, with sound collages and poetry and a glimpse through the eyes of a blind man. We were on an Amtrak train coming back from Manhattan in 1999 when we found Moondog’s obit in the NYT. I folded that up and stuck it in Moondog’s “Sax Pax For a Sax” cd.
Hark Pictures from Midlands UK is making a documentary about Moondog and the director found the Upstate article that I had transcribed. She asked if I still had the original article. Good question, I have digitized so much of my stuff over the years. I just bought a new desk for my computer and in keeping with my minimal aesthetic it has no drawers so I filled the trash can three times with old stuff. But I surprised myself and found the magazine squirreled in one of the few remaining hiding spots. The brittle old newsprint cracked as I did 600dpi scans of the pages.
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